I have a problem that I am struggling to admit. I am an addict. I love technology and have or lust after or consider every cool geek toy or gadget that comes on the market, especially if it’s Apple compatible.

Apparently, I’m in a co-dependent relationship, because M. seems to have a role in enabling this addiction. While I’m not sure that he’d ever stand on a street corner finding a ne’er-do-well willing to supply my jones, he is cool with colluding with an Apple employee to buy me the good stuff.

Last night’s birthday/VD surprise was the not easy to get, because not enough have shipped, iPod Shuffle.

I had a third gen, 30 gig iPod when we first started to get to know one another. For this past Christmas, he added an iPod mini to what I didn’t realize was going to become my collection.

And now, I can Shuffle. Sweet. (And if anyone asks, since it comes with a lanyard, he got me a necklace for Valentine’s Day, just because that’s so goddamn girlie a thing to squeal. I assume one would squeal it.)

(Of course, I fully realize that he is a student of history and of Machievelli. I enjoy these gifts, and I appreciate how they are personalized to the gadget geek that I am. But, they just might be tinged with a soupcon of selfish, self interest.

The 30-gig, it has been suggested to me, would be good in the living room of our new place as part of the stereo set up. The Mini is now my de facto car player, which adds a bit of soundtrack to our lives. And, the Shuffle has been recommended for the long walks I am very much encouraged to take, perhaps because a beer gut on a 40-year-old chick isn’t uber-enticing.)

For my part, I am an abysmal failure in gift-giving this time around. In my defense, he is a very particular (as in incredibly “picky,” but I’m trying to be polite) kind of man. The leather jacket was a good attempt in terms of genre, but the style was not good.

I had incorrectly thought his attraction to shearling collars on jackets and his love for American icons would make a bomber jacket a good choice. Alas no.

I also thought giving him something from the high end of retail would be kind of a fun treat. However, he suggested I never, ever shop in a store for old, white men if I was looking to outfit him.

I think that’s good and pretty funny advice.

(Weirdly, I have new respect for my mother Pat and her struggles to get clothes for my brothers. Like M., when they were young, they were lean and fit and pretty much not designed for the brawnier Ls, XLs and XXLs that fill most racks of US clothes, so she would buy European tailored stuff. How did I end up with a guy with the body type that taunted my less lean, lower to the ground self all through my childhood?)

Tonight, I hope to redeem myself out there in other stores free of old, white man influence.

The funny thing I was gonna mention that didn’t fit into the stuff below —

I’ve been reading a book on career advice and whatnot. In it the author, Anne Fisher, who writes an advice column for Fortune magazine, makes a crack about office politics. She says something about a stiletto and instructions on its best use between the third and fourth ribs. Or something like that.

I mention it only because here’s a woman, one could surmise, is pretty savvy in the ways of businesses and all if she’s giving career advice for a top business magazine. She’s also a writer.

She metaphorically mentions stabbing. In fact, she very specifically mentions stabbing into a human body and where exactly the blade should slide and what type of blade it is.

And, you know what? I’m pretty fucking absolutely positively sure, no pinhead at Fortune or her publisher’s office made her go for a psych evaluation to prove she’s not a violent threat. You know why? Because it would be fucking ludicrous.

Metaphor does not equal violence.

Sometimes, I hate my life and the many adventures in which I seem to fall.

I have sooooo much to do. Or at least there is so much I would like to do before tomorrow evening, when the Boyo returns to Boston.

I did succeed in not completely wasting the time of two friends who came by with a van. A shitload more stuff was dropped off at Goodwill. The IRS is going to think I’m insane when I compile all my receipts and total the amount given to charity in goods this year.

Once again, one of my fine neighbors decided to trash pick through stuff that was this time still on my porch, as the van was brought around. Fucking no-class assholes.

I think it’s the same household of people who have ransacked my shit each and every time I’ve had anything out for roughly a minute. Rude bastards should at least give me a card.

This time they took a mirror, which kind of fucks me since that’s something I could have claimed had value on my tax returns.

They’re actually the folks that made me decide not to have another yard sale. I really don’t need people coming up to me and trying to bully me into giving them shit. Yeah, I’m yuppie scum and all that, but I’ve fucking worked hard all my life and can live with out you treating me like a criminal just because you don’t want to give me a whole, fucking 50 cents for a some designer shit candle I once got for a gift. Or sell you the Nikon camera body I accidentally put into a box of things for a buck.

People suck.

At least I came to a half-decision on some stuff. I put the old dishes that I really can’t decide whether to keep, sell, smash or give to charity in the same box. I’ll move it, and if we don’t have the space I’ll store it or decide out there.

Mostly it’s blue willow.

When I was little I was fascinated by having people and birds and houses and shit on my dishes. Over the years, my mother gave me plates and odd pieces that she had picked up, or she had gotten from her mother, or her mother had gotten from her mother. So I have pieces of unknown lineage, age or value, but they all came from my mom.

I also have blue-willow looking Wedgwood plates with historic buildings in Boston. I figure I might just need to use them or maybe hang one in the kitchen to remember my Massachusetts roots when I’m in Cali. Perhaps M. will indulge me in such things.

Maybe I’ll never take the stuff out of the box. Or maybe when I get to California the decision on what to do with the old things my mother gave me will become clearer.

Here’s a link I was sent in a fairly evil spoof of eBay.

The email said my eBay account was suspended for inappropriate activity (alarm #1, since I’ve only ever sold a box of Pez dispensers and followed the rules) and needed to log in to fix it. It was also sufficiently fucked up so that three different mail readers didn’t correctly show it’s HTML content, and it saved as RTF not HTML (alarm #2, because I’m pretty sure that eBay knows how to send HTML emails, based on ads and whatnot I have gotten).

Fortunately helping from even having to be slightly alert it was sent to a generic email address at my site, rather than the one I used for eBay (or use for Craig’s List or basically use for anything semi-public and spammable) (alarm #3).

I doubt I ever would have included my mother’s maiden name even if eBay had ever requested it. Sheesh. Criminals are tricky.

Every Superbowl major, multi-million dollar minute that Sir Paul McCartney sang on Sunday a little bit more coinage went to Apple Records catalog owner Michael Jackson.

Sumpin just ain’t right when the cash register is tallying that kind of capitalistic erection do-re-mi, when a guy is at the start of a child-rape trial that’s been years in the making.

By my reckoning, that’s two years’ running of Jackson family obscenity. But this year’s kind of makes Janet’s nipple look kind of pale, you know.

Turns out, according to M. I may have been incorrect in my assessment of the incompatibility chink in our relationship’s armor. (And, I checked, it’s PC to use “chink” in that form in a sentence.)

We did watch some of the same shows growing up, he wasn’t all just “Miami Vice” and “Battlestar Galactica.” When he mentioned “Laverne and Shirley” and “Happy Days,” I started to relax. When he invoked “Mary Tyler Moore,” I could breathe again and tore about the long and tortured break-up note, riddled with pop culture references and genuine tears of regret.

I do consider one of my past dating mistakes to have been being with guys who cannot participate in TV trivia conversations, are American pop culture illiterate, or who pretend they have never watched mindless television. Who would have guessed sitting at home in Malaysia was a guy watching the same shows as a chick in Boston’s suburban wasteland?

Also, by the way, I hugely admire the chicks who have the chutzpah, faith in themselves and maybe hubris to go out and buy new wardrobes to make over their guys.

(I never understood the phenom, but I have had conversations with girlfriends about hating how a guy looked and making him go shopping, get a haircut, etc. Apart from the making anyone do anything gamut, none of these women has ever been a fashion paragon. )

I mention this last bit only because I break out into hives whenever I buy M. anything, because I want it to fit into what he likes, rather than what I think he should like.

While not tripping across the rubble of my scattered belongings, I’m thinking about the upcoming visit of M for Linuxworld in Boston.

He’s arriving on Valentine’s Day, which is kind of sweet if you care about such things.

(As I side note, I have historically cared about such things, but I think it’s directly proportional to how much other terrible shit is going on in the relationship. When I have dated a wonderful, decent guy with some sensitivity about others on the planet (such as M.), I haven’t sweated VD and wished for some Hallmark bullshit. However, when I have dated a total fucking asshole, as I have unfortunately done, who has treated me like a doormat, which I have unfortunately done, VD has been some weird desert oasis. Like, “Ohhhhh he’s a friggin’ asshole who has crushed me seven ways to Sunday, but aren’t these roses pretty?”)

On the whole, I’d prefer skipping the bullshit holidays in favor of a full year of not dating a weasel. These last couple of years have reinforced that preference, so I’m not really caring about Valentine’s. (Although, I do so enjoy nagging M. about stupid stuff.)

Unrelated to the synthetic holiday and because he possesses an ability to plan into the future, which I consider an asset, M. thought it might be nice to celebrate our birthdays a few weeks early. Afterall, he’ll be at my place for the last time, and I’ll be in the painful throes of actually moving when the real birth dates arrive.

Cynically, I’ve suggested it also provides him a great dodge to the VD, Hallmark, you don’t bring me flowers, someone left my cake out in the rain, Feb. 14 fun.

Because every now and again, I like to be a tad frivolous in gift-giving, especially for someone who doesn’t ask for much, I’ve been racking my brain (and picking other brains) for inspiration. I narrowed it down to a flight lesson at the flight school he passes on his way to work and something else.

I went with the something else. But, now, I’m a nervous wreck waiting to see whether it’s an acceptable version of what it is and whether it’s to the gentleman’s liking. It’s classic, it’s American, it’s from a store I never, ever, ever go into, but will he like it?

Argh. The few days of uncertainty are going to kill me. (Even though, I made sure that it is completely returnable. Whew.)

I was just thinking I should cut John Paul II a little slack for staying in bed today, instead of going to mass.

It’s not a Holy Day of Obligation. I just remembered that when I saw that some poor, I hope not looking to get reacquainted with their faith, soul searched “catholic days of obligation” and got this site.

Last year I, unfortunately for that person, wrote about the non-obligatory status of ashes.

You do gotta give the RCs credit for creativity. Red hats, guys in gowns, special goblets (and goblet-wiping gear), funky collars and convincing people to walk around with smudges on their faces.

Skipping Ash Wednesday and you’re the Pope?

Dude, what kind of pontificating is that?

I like how this story and others have pointed out it’s the first one he’s missed in 26 years of poping. To me, quoting a 26-year streak begs the question was there a time when there was no streak. Did he miss a few when he was just Cardinal Something Polish? Or maybe when he was just a priest or a kid?

I know Mardi Gras craziness probably keeps some people from making it to church to get their foreheads dirtied, but I had kind of thought a pope would have a solid attendance record.

It doesn’t matter to my spiritual growth or anything, but I’m kind hoping the old Vatican goes for a more reformest pope the next time around. It would seem hard to imagine the College of Cardinals (right up there with the Electoral College for dubious distinction) coming up with someone more conservative than JP II. Not unless they dig up an old pope from the dark ages and pray for resurrection.

With the way the world is going with politics and fundamentalism and scary religious fervor all over the place, it might help to have a non-reactionary, time-warp pope for a change.

By the way, I was just scanning this article. Average cardinal age is 71, but there’s rules about letting the over-80 crowd vote. Man, them old geezers in their 60s and 70s are pretty hardass, forgetting they wanted always be so spry and might be 80 themselves one day.

Also in that article — What the hell? There were a couple of “secret” cardinals and how does that work? (Phone rings: “Dude, yeah, it’s me the Pope. You’re in, but you can’t tell anyone. We’ll send you the red hat, but you can’t wear it to mass. OK, OK, you can wear it on Halloween.”)

Or as I said to M. this morning, “I sure hope so.”

Not only did M. provide a Chinese New Year’s greeting (OK, more of an acknowledgement), but I also got a card from the Charles Wang Community Health Center, where I once gave some cash in memorial of someone’s mom. M. tells me the Chinese like the cash gifts.

(That last sentence sounded more racist than funny (as it was meant). Maybe it’s funny to me, because the memorial donation was actually the result of some liberal hand-wringing around my former place of employ. Various educated types went around researching and polling what to do when a Chinese immigrants’s mother has died. Giving cash was tough on their sensitive Brookline-y, Newton-ish souls. (And, of course, the hand-wringers don’t actually believe in souls.)

The more important news is I have my poor, unfortunate back from the dead Powerbook. Much rejoicing should be heard throughout the land.

Thank GOOOODDDDDDD. If the withdrawals from using a Windoze laptop were not painful enough, my particularly obnoxious brother was screaming at me that “open source” was stupid and Linux is a piece of crap during the Superbowl. Maybe it was the testosterone, adrenalin cocktail of major league football. Or maybe that his bread and butter is becoming more obviously subpar (or at least more obvious to those folks who never knew before that they had choices).

Here’s an article from someone better stating what I think is obvious (and thus rendering the Superbowl scream match irrelevant). Seems like a good sign that the article is from the location to which I am heading.

Actually, it wasn’t so much the slagging off on Linux I minded. It was the completely uninformed, fucktarded assertion that openoffice.org is “a piece of shit program that can’t do even a fraction of what Word can do.”

Dude, I’ve been hard-core, power-using wordprocessoring since before you discovered you could program. Sure it was suck-ass, tortured, pre-adolescent bullshit writing, but I was type, type, typing into little bits and bytes long, long ago.

Openoffice.org can do MORE than Word (including save to Word and other programs well (not some shitty modified RTF with garbage characters, like Word), including one of its best features, saving to PDF), and it isn’t half as aggravatingly non-intuitive. Word has always been and will always be one of the most cantankerous, frustrating, fucked up wordprocessors. Asserting it’s superiority is just pure retardation (no offense to anyone differently abled who would likely never make such a foolish claim).

Sorry, just venting here on my newly recovered Powerbook. By the way, it’s the Steve Austin of computers now. Better, stronger, etc. Well, at least when the hard drive crash I had it replaced with one twice as big. Yeah, 80 gigs just waiting to be loaded with my crap.

Speaking of the “Six Million Dollar Man,” my heart is a tad crushed today. After a couple of years (almost) of relatively smooth sailing with M. I have found a place of serious discordance and incompatibility — Television of the 70s and 80s.

In 24 hours, shows like “Miami Vice” and “Battlestar Galactica” have cropped up in conversation. Do I admit my true feelings and mock his taste? Or do I use this moment in our relationship to learn more about him and perhaps forge new ties?

I’m thinking mocking. I mean, really, “Miami Vice” has always been and will always be just totally freaking gay.